IONIA — County residents had a final opportunity in 2012 to drop off their household hazardous waste Saturday morning at the Ionia Department of Public Works (DPW) garage. The collection took place during the city of Ionia's annual fall "Dump Your Junk" day.

Fifty-five people brought in:

~ A 55-gallon drum-full of batteries, plus 10 car batteries.

~ 2 pounds of mercury from thermometers and thermostats

~ 220 pounds of pesticide

~ Results are not in yet on other items that included old gasoline, florescent light bulbs, oil, turpentine, pool chemicals, and oil-based paint.

While residents brought miscellaneous dumpster-worthy items to the DPW, six staff members and volunteers collected hazardous household waste, according to Melissa Eldridge of the Ionia Conservation District.

"It's a great program to team up with. We take the bad stuff so it doesn't go into the landfill," she said. "You don't want it getting into the ground water."

The hazardous waste collection accepts a host of chemicals and other items from homes, garages, pools and those used in some hobbies.

In addition to household-type batteries, the collection also accepts batteries for cars and boats, hearing aids, and rechargeable battery packs for tools.

Batteries contain heavy metals like cadmium, lead, mercury and nickel, which can leach into the soil in landfills, potentially contaminating ground or surface water.

After materials are sorted, counted, weighed and/or measured, they are "packaged, repackaged and packaged again" by Veolia Environmental Services, then "incinerated, neutralized or recycled, depending on the product," Eldridge said.

She noted that among the items not accepted for drop-off is latex paint. Since it is water soluble, it can be dried out, or mixed with scoopable kitty litter or saw dust, and disposed of in regular trash, said Eldridge. Oil-based paint is accepted, however.

Ionia County's Resource Recovery office, in conjunction with the health department and the conservation district, sponsors five hazardous waste collections a year, spanning April to September. This year, collections were held in Portland, Belding, Clarksville and Ionia.

In addition, the Clean Sweep event, co-sponsored by the Ionia, Barry and Eaton County Conservation Districts in early September, collected 6600 lbs of pesticides and herbicides from farms and residents in all three communities.

Household batteries, handheld digital devices like cell phones and laptop computers, and printer cartridges can be dropped off all year long at the Ionia Conservation District and the MSU Extension office during regular business hours. Batteries-only can be dropped at the Ionia County Health Department.

For more information about disposing of hazardous waste, or to volunteer, contact the Ionia Conservation District at 616-527-2620, ext. 101 or visit www.ioniacd.org.